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Fargo gets freaky: Patrick Magee’s episode nine recap

Fargo– Episode nine: A Fox, A Rabbit and A Cabbage

Malvo

This week, in a very extended prologue, we see what Malvo has been up to in the one -year interim from his massacre of an entire crime syndicate in Fargo, North Dakota. Improbably, he is now posing as a wholesome dentist in Kansas City, Missouri who has a penchant for saying ‘aces’ to everything.

At a cocktail party, in his very nice home with his very sexy young girlfriend, his new colleague invites Malvo on clandestine trip to meet with the guy’s brother in Las Vegas (who is hiding in witness protection). At the hotel bar, the two couples are enjoying some laughs before Lester – bringing us to the point of last week’s conclusion, interrupts them.

Lester assumes Malvo is there to threaten him and comes over belligerently; Malvo maintains his aw shucks routine and pretends not to know him. Lester emboldened by his new lease on life, interrupts the group again in the elevator and insists he knows what Malvo is up to. Malvo finally breaks character and pointedly asks ‘Lester is this what you want?’ when he answers an uncertain ‘Yes’, Malvo casually turns and shoots his friend and his wife and his own sexy new girlfriend. (It turns out the whole Kansas City interlude had been a ruse to kill the guy’s brother in witness protection.)

As Malvo starts to try and move the bodies, Lester, still with his insurance salesman of the year award, hits Malvo over the head with it. As he runs away, Malvo is heard in the distance ominously crying out “See you real soon, Lester.’

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Malvo with his new ‘friends’ in Las Vegas. That doesn’t last long. Photo: Supplied

Lester, Malvo and Solverson

Back in Bemidji, Solverson gets a call from the Las Vegas P.D about the elevator shootings saying the Lester may have been a witness. Lester, having fled Vegas is back in Minnesota makes impromptu arrangements for a trip to Acapulco but not before receiving a surprise visit from Solverson in relation to the Las Vegas murders.

Lester denies seeing anything and is careful not to tell Solverson that he is planning on fleeing the country later with his wife.

Meanwhile, we see Lester’s paranoia is justified as Malvo comes back in to town looking for retribution. He shows up at Lester’s old house, but their new owners who don’t know where he moved to, he leaves – but not before terrifying the new owner and his children with the story of the murders.

Malvo continues his search at Lou’s Diner, playing an aw shucks routine with Solverson’s Dad and wondering if he knows where Lester is – Lou isn’t buying it and grows increasingly suspicious of Malvo and in a very tense scene remains very careful not to give anything away. As Malvo drives off, Solverson comes in to meet FBI agents Budge and Pepper. She takes them to the station and shows them her whiteboard theory on the case, the agents are spectacularly impressed with her work and agree to pursue Malvo as the chief suspect on the Fargo massacre and the Hess murders – but not before reprimanding the dim-witted Oswalt for interfering with her work on the case.

Later that night as Lester and his wife drive to the airport, she tells him how she had a crush on him the whole time she’d been working with him and had hoped they would somehow get together – she also talks about how hard her previous job had been as a hotel cleaner and how she’d hoped someone successful would take her away from her life of hardship; Lester, not really paying attention, stops off at his (new) offices to pick up the passports. Suspecting Malvo, might be waiting, he sends his wife in wearing his coat, so that she can be disguised as him should anyone be waiting. Sure enough, Malvo is there and from a distance we see him gun down Linda in Lester’s office.

Other observations

Whoa, what an episode, definitely feels like we are moving toward a very dramatic conclusion next week. Some kind of final showdown between Lester and Malvo feels inevitable. This week also saw Grimly, doing his mail rounds, suspect he saw Malvo again: a confrontation between these two has been building since the first episode – very keen to see how this plays out.

If there was ever any doubt how amoral and evil Lester had become this week’s finale clinched it, offering up his very adoring wife to Malvo: Ugh. But their whole conversation in the car before her murder was telling – that this woman would have been with Lester, even before he became a success’ shows how pointless his whole self styled ‘transformation’ has been – especially all the murdering and lying he has done to make it happen.

I really thought Malvo was going to try and kill Lou, Solverson’s father, there whole diner conversation was so freaking tense.

Very cool to see someone finally appreciate what a genius Solverson was for figuring out the entire case!

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